According to Albert Einstein, “failure is success in progress.” While I’m not bold enough to disagree with Einstein, I think he missed the mark here. His quote is a reflection of our American attitude towards failure: you can fail, but only if it later becomes overshadowed by your ultimate success. But what if we stopped equating failure to a means of achievement and valued it as an isolated occurrence?

Failure, in its most organic form, is denoted as a lack of success. This basic definition does not speak of personal growth, it does not speak of triumphs to come, it does not softly murmur “fall down seven times, stand up eight.” It is utterly crystalline in meaning: you fell short. While jarring, this meaning is one that needs to be taken more seriously.  

Still, there is truth to the notion that failure can incite personal growth and achievement. Before going on to be regarded as one of the greatest basketball players of all time, Michael Jordan was cut by his high school team. Before ultimately kick-starting his wildly successful career, Stephen King’s manuscript of “Carrie” was rejected 30 times. Prior to winning three academy awards, Steven Spielberg was rejected from the University of Southern California’s film school three times. Failure is an undeniable catalyst for success. But perceiving it as such takes away from its effectiveness, creating too soft a place to land.

Failure is most effective when it is something utterly inconceivable, a non-option. For many high school students, we inevitably fall prey to the rhetoric of our devilish subconscious that tells us every single grade we receive has a direct impact on the quality of our future. 

While this can be difficult, whether the failure be academically, athletically or socially, it often leads to one, blaring occurrence that must take place for a failure to be turned into a success: an ego check. 

Failure produces success because it breaks you down, forcing you to consider where your strengths and weaknesses lie and where improvement is necessary. Such contemplation will not take place following failure if it is regarded as something inevitable, something acceptable and something that will pass. 

In her book titled “Being Wrong,” Pulitzer Prize winning writer Kathryn Schulz said, “Being wrong is hard and humbling, and sometimes even dangerous, but in the end it is a journey, and a story.”  

As outlined by Schulz, wrongness, failure and error all lead to reflection, to greater curiosity, and eventually, to success. But what makes this possible? The fact that before the greatest minds in history realized that they got it wrong, they thought they were right. 

Thomas Edison, world renowned 19th century inventor, did more than just patent the lightbulb. He also invented the automatic vote recorder, an invention which was supposed to make the voting process easier, but was quickly shut down. His device was unwanted by politicians who feared that it would damage the system of voting. This failure allowed Edison to realize the need for creating inventions that had a specific market, a lesson he would not have learned otherwise, and one that ultimately led to successes that secured his legacy.

In high school, we aren’t inventing world-altering technology, uncovering groundbreaking theorems or founding fortune 500 companies. But this principle of failure remains true. For failure to be metamorphosed into success, we need a willingness to be taught, to be inquisitive and to accept that we are all, to varying degrees, somewhat ignorant. Strive for the grade, for the leadership role, for the spot on the team and be disappointed if you don’t get it. But rather than being simply angry with yourself, or someone else, reflect inward. Take a moment to think slightly less of yourself, not in a manner that’s degrading, but one that simply calls for a shift in perspective. Maybe you’re not the student, leader or athlete you thought you were. All that means is you have to work harder to become a better one. 

Failure produces humility, humility produces hard work and hard work produces achievement. But failure will only lead to humility if we take it seriously, and let it impact us, let it break us down, sit with us and forget about the success possibly down the road. Just let failure be failure, until, all of a sudden, it’s not anymore.